Experts Directory

John Patterson is the founder and president of Mr. Sun Solar, one of the Northwest’s oldest solar businesses. He is the inventor of the Sol-Reliant solar water heating system. He has installed more than 1,000 solar water heating systems and serviced many thousands more, including nearly every type of system sold in the past 30 years. A speaker and advocate for renewable energy and carbon reduction, John is currently writing a book on global warming...

Jay Peltz has been working in the renewable energy field since 1993. He spent many years working as the head designer and technical support for AEE Solar. In 2000, Jay started his own business specializing in off-grid solar, water pumping and hydro installations as well as consulting. He has lived off grid for five years on a homestead with solar electric, solar thermal and micro hydro power. Although most of his work is in his local Northern...

After living together on their off-grid property for the better part of four decades, Home Power’s publishers, Richard and Karen Perez, sum up their homesteading experience: “Vehicle access—hard. Communications— hard. Electricity—easy.”

Like a lot of adventure-seeking youth from their generation, Richard and Karen ended up in San Francisco in the late 1960s. Richard came west from Vermont, and Karen left her childhood home in the Saint Bernard Parish...

Hugh Piggott has lived off-grid since 1974, at Scoraig in North West Scotland. During most of that time he has worked on design, installation, and repair of small wind power turbines and systems. Hugh teaches courses relating to small scale renewable energy, mostly hands-on wind turbine contruction workshops, in many countries. He enjoys talking about wind turbines and getting paid for it, but also answers questions from many enthusiasts around...

David Posluszny works for Dolphin Insulation, helping other homeowners reduce their heating bills. David has a bachelor’s degree in building construction technology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He became interested in saving energy after two military deployments overseas (Iraq and Afghanistan), where the wastefulness and energy losses were everywhere.

Shari Prange has been in the electric vehicle industry since she joined Electro Automotive in 1983, where she has been responsible for technical documentation. She has written on electric vehicle topics for many publications, and served for many years on the Home Power editorial staff as writer and transportation editor. She has taught electric vehicle classes since 2003, and co-authored Convert It, the premier manual on electric...

Robert W. Preus, PE is Founder of Advanced Renewable Technology which provides training and engineering in wind energy. He has 25 years of experience in wind energy. He led the successful development of 2.5 kW to 300kW wind generators. He has extensive experience in design of wind energy systems. He has trained many dealers in the installation of distributed wind systems and served on the committees that developed NABCEP installer certification...